Is she normal?

Because I feel responsible for introducing my niece to a certain test that supposedly measures autism spectrum disorders, I want to respond to her heart-breaking blog, in which she asks, "Am I normal?"

I'll dispense with the old saw "Normal is just a cycle on the washing machine" and give her my honest opinion. No, Tassina, you are not "normal" in the sense that you are like most other women. As I read your words, I realized how often I too have felt exactly as you do. (I also hate talking on the phone, by the way.) When your parents and sister were here, they said repeatedly how much like me you were. So if you aren't normal, then I'm not, either, and that's okay. I've just learned better how to fake it than you have, mainly as a survival mechanism.

No two people on the face of the earth are identical. Amazing, huh? Yet the way humans function best is to categorize, group, and sort themselves and others into meaningful, understandable units. Thus, at some point, we humans went way past the usual dichotomies (smart, dumb; funny, serious, etc.) into subtle variations like the ones indicated on the autism spectrum.

I'm obviously not qualified to make a diagnosis, but based on people I've known and what I've read, I think you probably have Asperger Syndrome. No, not like Rain Man, but like a woman I attended my doctoral program with. I've never known someone more intelligent. Yet she was in many ways a social misfit. She didn't engage in small talk with others, and often her responses to social cues were off the mark. But I'd give anything to have had her ability to concentrate and learn.

It's okay to be different. Well, no, actually, it's damned hard to be different. Life seems so frickin easy for other people, and so hard for people who weren't cut out with a cookie cutter. Still, what I want to say is that there is a place for you. This discovery, if indeed it is on the mark, and I suspect it might be, is a starting place. For one thing, if you have one of the autism spectrum disorders (I hate that word "disorder" because it doesn't really honor the many gifts that come with it), you may qualify to have your college tuition paid for. (You may have to file for a disability status, and you already know how hard it is to get that done.)

Do some research on Asperger Syndrome. There are a number of famous people who are believed to have had it. It's good that you have learned how to respond to social cues that you realize others respond to. That's probably related to your high IQ and to your deep desire to have a connection to others. Deeply autistic people really don't seem to care if they have emotional connections to other people, so I don't think you are as far off the "normal" cycle as all that! (Normal people are just so very boring anyway. Who would want to be one?)

One of the deepest regrets of my life is that I haven't had a chance to be an ongoing part of YOUR life. I think I could have made a meaningful difference to you, and now, with me getting old and you being grown with a family of your own, living many miles away--well, it's a good thing we have Facebook and our blogs. I hope we'll continue to communicate. You help me, too. Just before I read your blog, I was feeling really angry about something silly, and now, I feel calmer and more myself. My husband knew I was stressed out about work, so he decided to cook supper for me, and I just did not want what he cooked. Since my gastric bypass, one of the foods I cannot handle is spaghetti and meatballs, and he loves it (and it's one of the few things he can cook). Plus, instead of using "real" meat, he uses those premade meatballs that always taste spoiled to me. So I stormed out of the room and came up here to my office (which I angrily was trying to clean, and fussing and fuming because of the pounds of cat hair my cat has decorated with). Now I feel better, but I'll feel even better once I apologize to my husband.

Tassina, accept the fact that you are not and cannot be an ordinary person. You are, instead, extra-ordinary. We just need to find a path that you can follow, one that doesn't mean you have to give up everything else meaningful in your life. It can be done.